In remote locations especially with disaster, civil unrest or war time activities, it is advantageous to have medical facilities with beds for injured individuals for the individual to rest, receive medical treatment and other needs. These medical facilities are needed quickly and are generally temporary. When the event requiring the bed is completed, the medical facilities, and the beds, are typically packed and transported to another needed location or the majority of the time are abandoned in the field. There is a need for a more transportable field bed that is sufficiently durable so that when the event that requires the bed is completed, the bed can be left in the field for subsequent use by others, for example a local hospital.
Transporting the beds to and from the remote facility can be time consuming and costly as most beds have a large footprint. Further, it is desirable for beds to include supports that support a pad off the ground both for comfort as well as when the bed is used for providing medical treatment. It is also desirable that the bed be portable, collapsible and provide a stable support surface. Preferably, the support surface can be flat and transition into a upright position to support the individual in a sitting-up position.
One attempt to provide a field bed is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 1,257,984. However, this attempt does not support the bed at a height advantageous for providing medical treatment, is an unstable (swinging) platform and requires standards to penetrate the ground. U.S. Pat. No. 4,685,160 discloses a portable bed that can be disassembled for transportation and storage. However, this attempt involves a complex undercarriage, disassembles into parts increasing the potential that an incomplete bed to be shipped to the field and includes motors for moving the bed into multiple positions.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide for a field hospital bed that can be easily transported to a remote location, used as a bed in a temporary medical facility with sufficient strength and durability to be converted in to bed for subsequent use once the need for the bed is completed.